Posts Tagged ‘ScotlandsPeople’

We are delighted to announce that the Valuation Rolls (VRs) in Scotland for 1895 have just been added to the ScotlandsPeople website. The new records, comprising 2,095,707 indexed names and 75,565 digital images, cover every kind of building, structure or dwelling that was assessed in 1895 as having a rateable value, and provide a fascinating picture of Scottish society during the late Victorian era.

What do the 1895 Valuation Rolls contain?The Rolls contain the names of owners, tenants and occupiers of each property – and in many cases, occupations are also included. The head of the household is usually the named person, although sometimes a husband and wife might both be listed – interestingly, wives are often the named tenant in rented property. As the Rolls contain individuals from right across the social spectrum – from dwellers in Scotland’s tenements to famous property and land owners – they reveal some very interesting features of social history in Scotland during the late Victorian era.

If you have any questions about Valuation Rolls, visit the dedicated FAQs page on the ScotlandsPeople website.

What can I learn from the 1895 Valuation Rolls?
You can find out who was living at a specific address, and whether they rented or owned the property. You can also see the rent that was paid for the house or flat, as well as the rateable value of the property, As the 1895 VRs appear between the 1891 and 1901 censuses, we believe that these new records will help family history researchers to find ancestors who have gone ‘missing’.

The new records, comprising over 2.4 million indexed names and over 74,000 digital images, cover every kind of building, structure or property in Scotland which were assessed as having a rateable value in 1905. Fully-searchable both by name and address, the 1905 Valuation Rolls (VRs) provide a terrific snapshot of Scottish society during the Edwardian era, and will be a valuable resource for genealogy researchers and local/social historians.

What do the Rolls contain?

The rolls record the names of owners, tenants and occupiers of each property, unlike the full lists of family members to be found in the censuses. The named person is usually the head of the household, but sometimes a husband and wife might be listed. Frequently, the wife is the named tenant of rented property. The VRs include all social classes – so you can read about folk who lived in tenements to owners of mansions and country estates.

What can I learn from the 1905 Valuation Rolls?
You can learn about who was living at a certain address, and whether they owned or rented the property. You can also see the rent that was paid for the house or flat, and also the rateable value of the property. As the 1905 VRs appear between the census years of 1901 and 1911, the new records will also help researchers to find ancestors who disappeared between censuses.

Notable buildings – the Burns cottage/museum, Edinburgh’s Empire Theatre and the Glasgow Pavilion
There are also some very interesting VRs for Scotland’s prominent buildings – from railway hotels and football grounds to theatres and public libraries. With Burns Night just passed the ScotlandPeople website have also included the VR for the cottage the Bard was born in. They have also included VRs for the Empire Theatre in Edinburgh and Glasgow’s Pavilion Theatre.

So whether you’re a genealogist or a social/local historian, the 1905 Valuation Rolls will be a rich resource for historical research. The 1905 Rolls will also complement the 1915 VRs, which were launched in March 2012. Taken together, the 1905 and 1915 VRs offer researchers an excellent set of records for learning about the owning/renting of property by Scotland’s people in the early 20th Century.

From tenement dwellers to owners of mansionsTo start searching and browsing these new records, just click on the link for the 1905 Valuation Rolls in the left side menu on the ScotlandsPeople homepage.

How many new records are there and how many people does it cover?
The new records, 392,595 in total, document the last wishes of 267,548 individuals who lived and died in Scotland between 1902 and 1925. The collection also includes the wills of Scots who died outside Scotland, but still had assets in the country. As inventories of moveable estate (savings, cash, furniture, stock, etc) are also included, you can discover the fine details of people’s worldly possessions during this era.

The new records include both poor and the rich

Andrew Carnegie

People from all social classes are included in these new records – from famous industrialists and philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie and George Coats, to the impoverished inmates of the nation’s poorhouses. With more than 35 millionaires included in the records, you can learn how the members of this Scottish ‘Rich List’ ultimately chose to distribute their wealth.

Conversely, the simpler and cheaper procedures for recording wills that were introduced by the Small Estates Act of 1894, ensured that more estates below £500 were also included.

The question asked in the survey was:

‘Which Valuation Rolls would you like to see published next?’

Earlier: from 1905 to 1855 (i.e. every tenth year), starting at 1905;

Later: from 1920 to 1955 (i.e. every fifth year), starting at 1920.

In reply, 70% of voters said they would like the earlier VRs to be published next, with only 30% of voters preferring the later VRs. So we can look forward to the 1905 to 1855 VRs becoming available online shortly.

A fascinating snapshot of Scotland during the First World War and a major new family history resource

A detailed picture of wartime Scotland is revealed with the release of details from the Valuation Rolls for the year 1915-16, via the ScotlandsPeople website.

The rolls have been made searchable online for the first time, allowing genealogists, local historians and other researchers to view images of entries in the rolls, fully searchable by name or address.

Available from the Local History Library at Carnegie

ScotlandsPeople Vouchers

Starter vouchers £7.00 for 60 credits

Top ups £5.60 for 30 credits

These vouchers can be used in the library and at home and enables users to access records for the whole of Scotland online.